Monday November 26, 2012, 11:39 am
I'm extremely healthy and youthful but - and I never thought I'd say this - I can't wait to get on Medicare. My current health ins. premium (a retirement policy thru Aetna thru Famers Ins, my former employer) is $900/month. Yep... a MONTH - with a $5000 deductible. Anything except for my yearly woman's physical, comes out of my pocket. A Dr. visit last year for bronchitis and meds cost me $300! Now, the premium is going up to -are you ready for this? - $1200/MONTH! It's like being raped monthly! This is really, to me, a terrible CRIME! Then I got a letter trying to explain why this RICH company had to increase their rates so much! It was a bunch of crap, actually! Of course I must pay this since nobody can afford to be uninsured but Medicare, here I come! It'll be like having ALOT better coverage at a lot less money!

Monday November 26, 2012, 3:31 pm
Thanks Carrie for the link to the article by Joe Baker. I fully agree with his conclusion "Medicare is the solution not the problem". My situation makes this a very important issue for me. I have an appointment Wednesday at 11 am with my Representative Bill Johnson (R) to let him know how I fell about the cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that are being proposed. Not sure if it will do any good but we will see. Read and noted

Monday November 26, 2012, 5:17 pm
Our premiums are going up a couple hundred a month as well come Jan. 1st. I've been saying, "take out the middleman insurance companies" for so long! Medicare For All is what we wanted from the beginning of the healthcare conversation. Unfortunately, Congress is beholden to for-profit insurance rather than health care. Let's not let them off the hook and continue to push.

Tuesday November 27, 2012, 7:19 am
I have no insurance and I do not qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. I hope I can stay realatively healthy until Obamacare truly kicks in and the exchanges are online. Even though my wonderflly stone age backward state is refusing to impliment the exchanges, the Feds have already said they will. So, I hope I can hold on until 2014 so I can get covered.

That said, my husband is on Medicare and he had to wait the 2 year grace period before that. Thankfully, he had insurance from his state agency that he retired from early. If he did not have Medicare now, I do not think he would be here today or for very much longer. He doesn't cost them as much as some we know of but there is no way we could afford the procedures has has had to have in the last year.

Medicare is not the problem, the for-profit medical complex of doctors, hospitals, pharma corporations and insurance corporations ARE. I would love to see Medicare-For-All where the agency could control the costs more effectively than being dictated to by the Medicorp complex....but then I AM a Socialist and this area tis one that the goverment CAN and DOES do better than the private sector. That's why the Rethugs hate it....it is not run on a for-profit basis. It is run on for-care basis of human beings that have frikken EARNED IT by PAYING into it ALL their working lives and CONTINUE to PAY PREMIUMS after retirement.